


Beholder's Eye

by foundCarcosa



Category: Dragon Age
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-05-31
Updated: 2012-05-31
Packaged: 2017-11-06 09:16:39
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 832
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/417225
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/foundCarcosa/pseuds/foundCarcosa
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She insists that the signs of age and strain are marring her. He insists otherwise, without saying a word.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Beholder's Eye

"There is nothing beautiful about me."

She says it with such matter-of-factness that Orsino almost doesn't catch the actual wording. She has a way of speaking with such conviction and force that you find yourself agreeing, whether the statement in question be that the sky is green or mages ought to be leashed.

When he does hear her, when the words sink in and twist in his brain, he drops the quill and turns in his chair to stare at her. " _What?_ "

"You heard me."

She stands in the full-length mirror, nude and freshly bathed, her hair wet and heavy on her shoulders. They'd started out alternating -- sometimes Orsino would come here, to her spartan chambers, and sometimes she would join him in his. It was easy work to turn the templars' eyes from where they didn't belong, but they were careful anyway. They, of all people, knew how tenuous their positions were.

But lately, Orsino has been spending more and more time here, where blooms of harlot's blush and embrium lull him into relaxation and Meredith's scent clings to the sheets long after she's vacated them. Where she steps from the bath and fills the bedchamber with a warm spice fragrance that draws Orsino to her like a moth to flame.

Just like now, although this time it is not the Orlesian scent that ejects him from the chair and pulls him quickly to her.

"Why do you say this?" he asks quietly, reaching for her instinctively but drawing back until he's sure she'll accept it.

"Are you _blind_ , Orsino? Look at this." She tugs viciously at the thickness of her thighs, taut with muscle but still corded with stretch marks near the groin and hip. "This." She snatches at and squeezes her breast, the tissue beginning to droop as gravity slowly wins its battle. " _This._ " Scars crisscross her midsection, and there are more on her back -- burns, lacerations, and places where frequent flares of fever has ruined the capillaries and left florid splotches of ruddiness.  
Under the ridge of her jaw, the muscle twitches, her teeth grinding. "I used to be..."

Orsino reaches up and slips the light robe off his shoulders, the silken fabric whisper-light as it hits the carpet. Underneath the paltry swell of his breast, his heart labours under the pressure of his sympathetic pain.  
Silently he slips his hands around her midsection, and she tenses and frowns but he ignores these otherwise-damning signs, bold in his need to give succour, give solace, ease the vulnerability she's been trusting enough to show.  
His hands are scarred, the burns so old he cannot remember what he looked like without them, puckered and discoloured flesh over his palms and the backs of his hands. They are not the only scars -- he is riddled with them, most of them magical, etching a vivid tale into his skin.

He takes these hands and curves them around her breasts, wrist crossed over wrist, the pads of his thumbs resting just over the nipples that harden at his touch. Meredith does not pull away, but watches him in the mirror, her expression impassive save for the brightness of her eyes.

Slowly he makes his way down her body with those scarred hands, smoothing over her still-flat abdomen where she swears a pouch is developing, down over the hips that tantalise him with their unassuming sway even when she is clad in full armour, gently squeezing in a way that makes her press against him, soft flesh against jutting hipbone.  
She is rounded where he is angles and planes, a slender frame gone too-thin in places because he has to be reminded to eat and reminded to relax and reminded to take care of himself, and he relishes this yielding softness of hers everywhere he can find it. He buries himself in it, cleaving to its warmth, loving everything that made her _woman_. Loving everything that made her.

His chest is too tight to ignore by the time slips his hand between her thighs, a pulsing warmth waiting for him there that made his blood quicken, and even the rush of arousal that suffused them both was not enough to quell the ache. That she should study herself so harshly, hate everything that he loved as ardently as he loved her flaxen hair or her brilliant eyes or her Orlesian-spice scent, shook him badly.

She closes her eyes, leans into him as his fingers stroke her with lazy, familiar slowness and his lips press to the curve of her shoulder, and he feels the tension flow out of her. He lifts his eyes to the mirror and can only see the fierce and fiery woman he loves, pliant and wanting in his embrace.

Later, swaddled in the sheets with their limbs entangled and sweat cooling on their flushed skin, he sees tears brimming on the edges of her eyelashes, and though they never quite make it down her cheeks, he kisses them away nevertheless.


End file.
